The Secrets of Gravy Revealed.
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Gravy is a sort of sauce that adds flavour, and can be filling and cheap. Good gravy can be a "pig out" "comfort food", especially if soaked up with bread.

Gravy is basically made with flour, that is mixed with a little water and then cooked slowly. The mixture then thickens. Keep stirring to prevent burning or "clagging".

There are lots of "packet mix gravies" out there, but the basic thing is so easy to make that you can tailor the type of flour (for allergies), the salt level, the thickness and the taste.

I learned to make gravy the classic way as a kid. We used to have a regular roast - usually beef, but also lamb, pork, or chicken. When cooked, the meat was placed on a plate. Before slicing, just cooked meat must be allowed to stand for 15 mins or so - this allows the moisture to redistribute itself, and makes the meat more tender, and easier to slice - the heat also keeps travelling inwards, and keeps cooking the inside. The gravy can be prepared while the standing takes place.

The oven tray/pan was then checked for juices - excess fat removed, a little water added if necessary, and placed on the stove top - GENTLE HEAT. A little flour was mixed with water, then added to the pan, and the mix stirred constantly over a low heat. The stirring is necessary as otherwise, it can burn or go lumpy.

The greater the amount of thickener added, the thicker the gravy. Too much and you end up with a dough - actually a "Roux" - the sort of thing you make some types of bread, buns and sauces from. But that's getting off the topic, although that is the "intertwingularity" of life.

You can add wheat flour, or really any other kind of plain flour, such as corn flour, probably even rice flour, but I personally have never used this, also arrowroot can also be used as a thickener, but some purists may not call that "gravy". You can also use those powdered or flaked style mashed potato. Gravy and mashed potato go well together. If absolutely desperate, "self raising" flour might be used, but it will froth and foam like a mad thing, possibly spilling over the pan, and you may find that the raising agent adds a taste, and affects saltiness.


Colour of Gravy.
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Paler colour gravy goes well with "whiter" meats like pork and veal, and possibly chicken. Darker colour gravy goes well with "red" meats like beef.

Normally the cooking residue at the bottom of the roast pan contains caramelised stuff that gives the brown colour, and some flavour. If making gravy without a roast, you can cook the flour a little longer, which will darken the gravy a little, or you can traditionally add "Gravy Browning" called "Parisian Essence". Other things can be added, even Marmite (OH NO! - it's another Marmite thread!).

For the "Pig Out With Bread" (you can use toast, but a thinner gravy soaks into toast easier) - I like a nice dark thick gravy. Very filling.


Flavour of Gravy.
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When prepared as above, the roasted meat juices add flavour. Without them, you can use "stock" - basically a thin soup - which you can get in various flavours as a prepared liquid or powder form - even the old "soup cubes". You can even find a multipack of the single serve type that you can get sauces in that you squeeze. You can add Bonox, (mixes easier than Marmite), or anything else that you prefer, soy sauce, Worschester, etc.

Just watch the salt content of your additives, you can get carried away.


Cooking with gravy.
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Even KFC supply a "form" of gravy....

You can serve side dishes of veges such as peas, etc with mashed potato to spin out or cost cut. You can even cook for more than one this way.

Sausages and gravy.
Cook the sausages, place on plate, make gravy, replace sausages, warm them again, serve with side dishes of veges, etc.

Sliced meat and gravy.
We used to do this with the left over roast meat. The new batch of gravy (could use the batch made when the roast was served warmed up, if any left - but usually there wasn't!) would be made from scratch in a frypan, then the cold slices cut from the roast in the fridge warmed in the gravy. We used to add bread, green vegs, even mashed potato on the side. Very cheap, especially with a bowl of canned tomato or other soup, and very filling and satisfying on a cold evening.

Ribs and gravy.
Pork, beef, veal, etc "ribs" - some types of which in Oz may actually be closer to US "Pork belly" or stomach or skirt strips - which may actually have NO bones in at all. Brown meat slightly, make basic gravy, re-add meat and simmer gently until meat cooked. This sort of thing you can add vegetables to as well - you are getting close to a stew here. The trick is SLOW cooking for these cuts - close to braising. You can start with the meat straight from the freezer - just allow sufficient time to cook properly.

Chops and gravy - you get the idea.


A tip on the veges added to the mix while cooking ribs as per above: you can get "Dryslaw" which is the basic sliced/chopped ingredients for coleslaw without the white creamy sauce - for singles this is an effective cheapish way of buying small amounts of mixed vegetables that you can use before they go off. This stuff is in larger chunks than the size in the KFC "Coleslaw - well that's what they call it" stuff.

Most of these dishes can be prepared in a frypan, especially if you have some sort of lid/cover to keep the steam in while cooking slowly. Take the lid off until the gravy is well blended and cooked, then simmer gently with lid on if needed to cook other ingredients.

AND NOW...

My favourite....

Bread and Gravy.
Make the gravy, flavoured how you will, and either immerse the bread in the pan briefly - it will start to fall apart if left to long - or pour the gravy over the bread in the plate/dish, or place in bowl/cup and dip bread/toast. Filling and cheap.


Robin

Intertwingularity is not generally acknowledged — people keep pretending they can make things deeply hierarchical, categorizable and sequential when they can't. Everything is deeply intertwingled.
— Theodore Holm (Ted) Nelson
(A Famous Computer Nerd)